right time comes somewhat instinctively to Drew these days. But where did it all begin? What are his first memories of picking up a camera, and how exactly did his career progress from front-page news snapper to artful denizen of the weekend style magazines and advertising agencies? As ever, the seeds were sown at a very early age.

'My first camera was a Zenith E that I bought for myself when I was 14,' he proudly proclaims. 'However, I soon realised that I wanted something more capable so I saved the money from my paper round and bought myself a Canon A1, which I still have today. Back then I'd wait until it got dark before setting up a darkroom in my mother's kitchen and staying up all night to develop things.

'I taught myself all kinds of crazy things back then - how to use old Kodak E4 kits, how to do 14-stage colour transparency processing, even E6. There wasn't much I didn't learn. My pictures were still terrible though,' he says, laughing.

And how did this childhood love of darkroom tampering turn into gainful photographic employment, we ask?

'Well, I started shooting for a local weekly newspaper when I was 15. I'd taken some photographs to illustrate the danger posed by lorries using a narrow street in the town where I grew up. I think they liked the fact I was young because it enabled them to put me on the front of the paper as some sort of "schoolboy campaigner". Anyway, the photographer on the paper took me on and that was my start.'

From these humble beginnings Drew moved to a local evening paper and eventually to a national weekly. The Sunday Correspondent. When the Correspondent went under, Drew joined The Sunday Telegraph, where he had a series of experiences that ultimately led to a complete change of artistic direction.

'While working for The Telegraph I spent time as a conflict photographer, first in Bosnia and then in Kosovo,' he explains. 'My experiences in those conflict zones proved to be the turning point for me because I found that I was taking all kinds of unnecessary risks only for my pictures not to be used. Also, I was constantly surrounded by death and destruction, which led me to feel that